The brochure has landed

The new brochure has arrived and 10 000 copies are awaiting distribution. You don't have to get one of them to read it though, you can download a pdf of the brochure (2 MB) from the business school website.

The brochure was a pretty serious piece of work, as well as the copy it needed editing and co-ordinating, people needed to pilot it through the SBS management system, photographs needed to be taken and layouts designed. So who did what?

Dr Maike Bohn, can take all the plaudits for making it happen, reigning in my wilder ideas (hey, lets do the whole thing as a fightclub parody...) and co-ordinating everyone on this list.
Paul at Wilson Harvey provided the graphic design skills that have it looking super sexy although he was ably assisted by
Rob Judges, freelance photographer par excellence (almost all the shots are of real students)
Liz Buckle and Jessica McGreesh had the unenviable task of checking the thing was not only accurately spelled, but factually true

and of course all my fellow classmates and students who put up with me trying to get them to say interesting things about the course, asking silly questions and making them write case studies for me.

The brochures are coming, the brochures are coming!

The new MBA brochures should be arriving in the next hour or two. Since this is the biggest bit of copywriting I've ever done (30+ pages) I'm really keen to see the results. The marketing department are already sick of me turning up asking if they're here (they were meant to be here on Tuesday, but there was a delay). It'll also be interesting to see what the current class makes of it.

Money in the bank...

As part of a summer campaign to bring in some funds I'm doing a few bits of freelance work. As well as some more bits and bobs on behalf of the school I'm going to be helping i-escape with their search engine rankings. It's a small piece of work, but you've got to start somewhere.

Incidently if you're planning a holiday you really should take a look at i-escape's site. They've got some fantastic write ups of some really interesting hotels and resorts. I know this sounds like I'm now writing on behalf of the client, but seriously, it's a gorgeous website with some really strong content - only the search engines aren't biting...

Meeting the readers

Yesterday I met up with Rani, who has been reading this website for the last eight months. I'd write more, but she promised to send me a picture of the two of us which she took over coffee and I thought it would be nice to include in the write up. Only it isn't here yet, presumably becuase I imagine she's very busy at the moment. So the write ups on ice for now.

If any other readers want to meet me the current going rate is a big cup of hot chocolate, although I'm susceptible to beer based bribery as well.

Balanced views

There is a moment at which you realise that your bit of the SBP may well revolve around suggesting a balanced scorecard approach. At this point you are confronted with the realisation that this afternoon and tomorrow may well be spent reading about accounting systems and performance metrics.

Its a moment I'd suggest people try to avoid.

Football cancelled

Honestly, just because it's pouring with rain (awful weather for July) tonights game of footie is cancelled. Still, as part of my current health kick I will do some exercise tonight. See, if I write stuff down it will happen...

Amazon on the blink

Worth mentioning only because it's the first time it's ever happened to me in dozens of purchases, but Amazon's server is up and down like a yo-yo at the moment. Have to imagine they've got some kind of back up system that isn't working 100% or an intermittent fault or something.

At this stage I've got enough faith in their customer service that even were my orders to suddenly be completely messed up I'd trust them to sort it out. Still, if this was my first experience of their site I'd be off. As a case in point doc searls has been blogging his problems with Paypal, I agree. I've tried several times to use this service and don't think I've ever succeeded. The hallmark of a system built by a guy who's real ambition was to send a rocket to Mars, from LA? Could be.

Site Updates

I've now finished adding course reviews for Hilary term along with accompanying revision notes. Click on the 'doing the MBA' section in the navigation above.

LOL

It's a long time since anything on the radio has made me laugh out loud. I guess they just don't play enough Billy Bragg. Here's the lyric responsible

She said it was just a figment of speech
And I said you mean 'figure'
And she said no 'figment' because she could never imagine it happening
But it did

When we first met, I played the shy-boy
When she spoke to me for the first time, my nose began to bleed
She guessed the rest
The next day we went on a bus ride to the ferry
And when nobody came to collect our fares, why I knew then this was something special

I couldn't stop thinking about her
And everytime I switched on the radio, there was somebody else singing a song about the two of us
It was just like being on a fast ride at Fun Fair- the sort you want to get off
because it's scary and then, as soon as you're off again, you want to get straight back on again

But oh love is strange

And you have to learn to take the crunchy with the smooth I suppose
She began going out with Mr. Potato Head
It was when I saw her in the car park with his coat around her shoulders I realized
I went home and thought about the two of them together until the bathwater went cold around me

I thought about her eyes and the curve of her breasts and about the point where their bodies met
I confronted her about it
I said 'I'm the most illegible bachelor in town'
And she said 'Yea, that's why I can never understand any of those silly letters you send me'

And then one day it happened
She cut her hair
And I stopped loving her

That's the way to do it

Cheskin have just given most of their top management, and probably everyone else who wants one too a blog. They're a very good marketing research / innovation firm in Silicon Valley. I know this cause I met Davis Masten at the Oxford Business Forum and he was bloody good, and when the guy who used to run the company is good it's reasonable to expect the same of the rest of the firm.

Gaps in the market

There seems to be a gap in the market for a competent search firm for jobhunting. I've called 8 this morning, two small ones actually managed to put me through to a consultant who told me 'when we say we do sales and marketing we actually mean sales'. Of the other six only one has managed to get back to me while the other five have all told me that the person I need to speak to is on the phone, but why don't I send a CV to their email address instead ? Not one of those emails has actually generated a reply.

I'm suppose that if you nail these people to a chair and refuse to leave the room until they help you might get something approaching useful advice, but I'm not sure. Awful industry, ripe for consolidation. Not convinced any of these firms do what they actually say they do.

Update Line two of the 'we might have to do some work' defense consists of asking if your CV is on the system. No, I say. Ah, they say. Send your CV and we'll get right back to you. So far there's a massive 0% response rate to this, maybe I sent the CV in too slowly (you know, a minute or so after getting off the phone)

Nearly there

Don't know the paper by paper marks yet, but I passed all last terms courses. I've now got 19 out of 23 credits toward my MBA. Still to go are two credits for the summer business project, and two credits for the final case study exam. Meanwhile the job hunt goes on.